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Case 1

I have further queries on "Publishing Poetry" and "Where to publish poems?" questions that already exist. I don't know what is the ideal approach to an extended question. Is it okay if I ask new questions, each separately, that extend these general questions' discussion to specific ones?

For example,

  1. Publishing x

where x can be any specific write up form. Should I ask separate question for each write up? x can be technical journal, recipe blog, story, essay etc?

  1. Which are genuine x apps to publish y?

where x can be android, or ioS and y can be technical journal, recipe blog, story, essay etc?

Case 2

Case 1 described the extensions to already asked questions. What if I have a completely new question that would become "too broad" if I asked it generally and would require me to break it down to extensions? For example,

I want to ask, "How to be a publisher?" and this is according to me too broad. So I thought to break it as follows: "What are the steps to become online publisher", "How to (Can I) be a publisher without owning any ISBN or ISSN" etc

What should be done when there are n number of extension possible to existing on-topic question? Is it okay to open new question for each extension? and

What should be done when there are n number of extension possible to a new question? Is it okay to ask the question part wise/separately?

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  • This is a hard question to answer without seeing examples. Sometimes having the specific questions is really helpful because, for example, it really is different publishing in different genres or age categories. Other times, people ask the same freaking question over and over and just change it up a bit, focusing on slightly different aspects. So, yes, ask as many questions as you like (within reason!) as long as they are really different from each other (meaning the answers will be very different) and from other questions (and on topic of course).
    – Cyn
    Commented May 23, 2019 at 19:03

1 Answer 1

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According to my limited experience here, being specific is better than being broad in most cases. The only exception to this rule is critique requests, that are of course off topic.

What should be done when there are n number of extension possible to existing on-topic question? Is it okay to open new question for each extension?

What should be done when there are n number of extension possible to a new question? Is it okay to ask the question part wise/separately?

Absolutely. You should be asking every question that

  1. You are interested in
  2. Is not a duplicate of an existing question
  3. Is on topic following the guidelines

It's better having each question in its separate thread rather than having multiple questions in a single one. Users will be able to answer to the question better, each question will get its share of views, and it's overall a good thing for the site. As Monica suggests in the comments, it's also a good practice to link the more general question in the specialized one, explaining why the two are different.

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    Agreed. Also, if you're asking a more-specialized version of a general question we already have, it helps to link to that other question and point out that your question is more specialized. Also, some of our older questions especially might be too broad; if so, please vote to close.
    – Monica Cellio Mod
    Commented May 22, 2019 at 14:51
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    Thank you. So let me get started with asking questions on main site then :)
    – Karan Desai
    Commented May 23, 2019 at 4:09
  • You're welcome!
    – Liquid
    Commented May 23, 2019 at 7:25

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